Hope, still

The Christmas carol says of the little town of Bethlehem that the world’s “hopes and fears are met in thee.” How true it is. And has been century upon century.

Jews, Christians and Muslims eke out a wary subsistence in the struggling town of 30,000 or so, buffeted by the tensions of their faiths and histories and convulsed by the regional political upheavals.

Bethlehem is the town where soul-shaping and history-shaping faiths say David was crowned king and the Prince of Peace was born. “How still we see thee lie,” says the carol. But Bethlehem has witnessed more turmoil than tranquility over the long passage of time.

The town has been sacked by Samaritans, ruled by Romans, conquered by the Sultan Saladin, governed by the Ottomans and administered by the Brits. In 2012 the fears of humanity are met in a Palestinian “Christmas” tree decorted with photos of relatives in Israeli prisons. Hopes are met in small gestures such as the faiths that recently came together dressed as Santas and handed out chocolates.

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Ugly realities crowd in on the peaceful sleep suggested by the carol. There’s the nearby barrier Israel erected to curb the ever-present scourge of random, terrorizing violence. There’s the hard-scrabble commerical activity, aggravated by that barrier. There’s the dwindling Christian population, three-quarters of the town decades ago, now down to less than a third. There’s the unemployment, highest in the West Bank.

It’s a town in a stranglehold of formidable forces, concedes the new mayor, Vera Baboun, a Christian and the first woman ever to hold that post in the ancient town. Yet amid the gloom she sounds steadfast in hope. She notes some new hotels. She points to a surge in small-business micro loans from various charitable sources. And she sees in recent steps toward the creation of a Palestinian state not threatening clouds of peril but a faint, flickering star potentially lighting the way over time to better days.

Could such dogged optimism be the voice of the angels spoken of in Luke, heralding — despite all obstacles — “on earth peace, good will toward men”? Let us hope and pray.